castironwok writes "Procrastination attracts us because of hyperbolic time discounting: the immediate (guilty) rewards are disproportionally more compelling than the greater delayed cost. Procrastination is the reward itself. An MIT professor found that when he allowed his students to give themselves their own homework deadlines, they would artificially restrict themselves to counter procrastination. However, they did not set deadlines for optimal effectiveness. I am personally a huge procrastinator and it's always a pull between rational logic (giving yourself the most time by choosing end dates as the deadline), and your past experience saying you will put it off so force yourself to start early."

PieEye writes "Wired is pointing out a recent Gear Factor blog entry that highlights a new skyscraper in the works which will be solar-powered, and what's more will rotate with the sun. From the article: 'The completed tower will offer 200 expensive apartments for people who want to spend lots of money to screw up their circadian rhythm. Singh said they want to build many more such towers, with one for every time zone.'"

An anonymous reader writes to let un know about a story up on the Experimental Aircraft Association site about a new kind of blimp. From the article: "Alberto, whose name pays homage to Brazilian aviation pioneer, Alberto Santos-Dumont, is 102 feet long with a 70-foot diameter and uses hot air rather than helium for lift. Its innovative foldable frame (much like an giant umbrella) creates structural support of its hot-air envelope, and it has a fly-by-wire vectored thrust steering system. Alberto is a hybrid; a hot-air balloon with aluminum ribs that looks more like a blimp, but with a tail propeller that gives it directional control." The home site of the blimp's developers has a timeline, photos, and a video of the blimp in flight.

john82 writes "Earlier this month we had a report from Forrester, based on a random sampling of 2,000 credit card accounts, that purported to show that iTunes sales were crashing. Now comes another survey from Reston, VA-based ComScore which indicates the exact opposite. ComScore's report which is based on actual iTunes sales shows a 84% increase during the first nine months of this year compared to the same period last year. Meanwhile the author of the Forrester report, Josh Bernoff, noted in his blog yesterday that they shouldn't be pummeled just because everyone took what he wrote and ran with it."

sudnshok asks: "Last week, an article was posted where an EA executive discussed the high cost involved with next-gen game development. While I agree that sports games do benefit from a high-resolution 3D environment, do all games have to be developed that way? Why can't game companies develop 2D games for these systems? I would assume the development cost would be much lower. As a gamer who grew up on the NES, I'd love to see a new 2D side-scrolling installment of Castlevania or Zelda. I'm curious if other gamers would buy 2D games for next-gen systems."

vichyschwa writes "A Coronal Mass Ejection resulting from an X3 Solar Flare earlier today is forcing the ISS and Shuttle astronauts to take cover and may result in communication disruptions. Last week, the same sunspot generated what astronomers described as a rarely imaged solar tsunami. The activity began with an X9 flare Dec. 5. According to Spaceweather.com, "satellites may experience some glitches and reboots, but astronauts are in no danger." However, the astronauts were ordered to a protective area of the space station as a precaution."

eldavojohn writes "Cassini has detected the tallest mountains on Titan, a large moon of Saturn. More importantly, clouds have also been detected in Titan's atmosphere. Why is this news important? Well, as scientists scan the skies for the easiest piece of mass to colonize, things that resemble Earth's geology & atmosphere are going to require the least effort & resources. These mountains mean that Titan may have tectonic plate movement similar in some ways to earth's. From the article, '"You can think of Titan as the Earth in deep freeze," said Dr Rosaly Lopes, Cassini radar team member at the US space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "It has a lot of the geological processes that Earth has. In fact, it is more Earth-like than anywhere else in the Solar System. But the surface is very cold; it's about minus 178C."'"

SkinnyGuy writes "The same guy who brought you the Fiber to the Premises (FTTP), FiOS broadband installation process, now brings you a detailed look at the FiOS TV install. He's thrilled and apparently couldn't be happier to say goodbye forever to Cable TV. There's a lengthy story and interesting slideshow." From the article: "I chuckled a bit to myself. After all these years of the phone company having to lease out and let competitors use its phone lines and utility poles, Verizon was using a competitor's wiring (and the work they did to run it into my house). Sorry, Cablevision."